GAO: U.S. lacks national strategy for deployment of advanced telecommunications infrastructure, calls for presidential leadership

In a statement this week, the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) underscored a report it issued in May 2022 finding the United States lacks a national strategy to guide the deployment of advanced telecommunications infrastructure. Instead, the report found, there are numerous, uncoordinated subsidy programs administered by multiple federal agencies.

The GAO statement once again called for presidential leadership. The Executive Office of the President should develop and implement a unified national strategy, noting as of May 2023, the recommendation has not been implemented. “[A] national strategy could guide the efforts of states and localities implementing programs in coordination with the federal government,” the GAO said. “The roles of states have become even more important as they receive and then distribute funds from new federal broadband programs administered by NTIA and the Department of the Treasury,” it added. The NTIA’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program has charged states with developing strategies to ensure universal access as part of their required Five Year Action Plans due this year.

However, $42.5 billion BEAD allocates to states to subsidize up to 75 percent of the cost of constructing advanced telecommunications infrastructure in areas where it is lacking could run into complications. That’s because eligibility is based on highly granular areas – that could be as small as a few premises -- that might be ineligible for BEAD subsidies because those locations received subsidization from one of many fragmented and overlapping federal programs. Not to mention various state subsidy programs.

We identified at least 133 funding programs—administered across 15 agencies—that can be used to support broadband access, including support for planning and deploying infrastructure, making service affordable, providing devices, and building digital skills. Some of these programs support broadband as their main purpose or one possible purpose, and others can be used for multiple purposes related to broadband. Eligible recipients for these programs range widely and include: internet providers; other private sector entities; nonprofits; tribal, state, and local governments; education agencies; and healthcare providers. Through these programs, federal agencies invested at least $44 billion in broadband-support activities from fiscal years 2015–2020, according to our analysis of agencies’ data.

Given the current lack of an overarching, coordinated strategy ensure universal service, “most of the agency officials and more than half of the nonfederal stakeholders we interviewed said a new national strategy would be helpful,” the GAO stated.